neocities guide - why you should build your own html website
do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again?
try neocities!!
what is neocities?
neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words:
"we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."
why should I make my own website?
web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!!
building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.
what would I even put on a website?
the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !!
here are some cool example sites to inspire you:
recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content!
space bar | local interstellar dive bar
creature feature | halloween & monsters
big gulp supreme
peanutbuttaz | personal site
dragodiluna
linwood | personal site
patho grove | personal site
getting started: neocities/html guide
sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css
sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating
web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics
w3schools | html tutorials
templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements
eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with
sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles
rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles
fun stuff to add to your site
want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found
blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe)
gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs
internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers
momg | gif gallery
99 gif shop | 3d gifs
123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages
cbox | add a live chat box
moon phases | track the phases of the moon
gifypet | a little clickable page pet
adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet
tamaNOTchi | virtual pet
crossword puzzle | daily crossword
imood | track your mood
neko | cute cat that chases your mouse
pollcode | custom poll maker
website hit counter | track how many visitors you have
web revival manifestos & communities
also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web!
melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum
melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival?
melonking manifesto |
status cafe | share your current status
nightfall city | online community
onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance
sadgrl internet manifesto |
yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource
reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience
in conclusion
i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :)
say hi to me on neocities
Going to put all this in its own post too by popular request: here's how you make your own website with no understanding of HTML code at all, no software, no backend, absolutely nothing but a text file and image files!
First get website server space of your own, like at NEOCITIES. The free version has enough room to host a whole fan page, your art, a simple comic series, whatever!
The link I've provided goes to a silly comic that will tell you how to save the page as an html file and make it into a page for your own site. The bare minimum of all you need to do with it is JUST THIS:
Change the titles, text, and image url's to whatever you want them to be, upload your image files and the html file together to your free website (or the same subfolder in that website), and now you have a webpage with those pictures on it. That's it!!!!!
.....But if you want to change some more super basic things about it, here's additional tips from the same terrible little guy:
That last code by itself is:
<meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=001.html">
Change "001.html" to wherever you want that link to take people. THIS IS THE REASON WHY when you go to bogleech.com/pokemon/ you are taken instantly to the newest Pokemon review, because the /pokemon/ directory of my website has an "index.html" page with this single line of code. Every pokemon review has its own permanent link, but I change that single line in the index file so it points to the newest page whenever I need it to!
While I catered these instructions to updating a webcomic, you can use the same template to make blog type posts, articles or just image galleries. Anything you want! You can delete the navigational links entirely, you can make your site's index.html into a simple list of text links OR fun little image links to your different content, whatever! Your website can be nothing but a big ugly deep fried JPEG of goku with a recipe for potato salad on it, no other content ever, who cares! We did that kind of nonsense all the time in the 1990's and thought it was the pinnacle of comedy!! Maybe it still can be?!?! Or maybe you just want a place to put some artwork and thoughts of yours that doesn't come with the same baggage as big social media?
Make a webpage this way and it will look the same in any browser, any operating system for years and years to come, because it's the same kind of basic raw code most of the internet depends upon!
Yearly reminder to everyone trying to find alternatives to tumblr/social media in general: go make a Neocities account and teach yourself basic HTML and post your art/writing/shitposts there.
It does take extra time to set up (but there are templates out there!) but it is so so worth it to have a site that is 100% YOURS!
You don’t even have to be that good at coding. I’m not. My site is not very accessible via mobile devices but that is fine with me (keeps me off my phone) but there are plenty of ways to make your site mobile friendly. There are plenty of bare bones/accessible sites I adore purely for the media on it.
Imagine having your site on your phone and showing someone- hey! I coded this from scratch. And I didn’t even have to pay a company like squarespace. All your images, links, writings, in one place. I have my fandom edits, memes, fanart, and custom graphics there.
Neocities has a very bare bones follower and comment system, but you can disable this if you want your site to truly abstain from any social media-isms. I use it because its a great way to meet other webmasters and get help with coding problems. Neocities isn't an exact replacement for Tumblr (no reblogging here) but html coding is an invaluable skill to know, as is keeping a personal website in this day in age.
The awesome thing about having your own website is if, god forbid, Neocities goes down, you can move your site to any other number of hosting platforms (like Teacake.org). Your site is truly YOURS, and no one else (shitty tech CEO cough cough) can take it away from you.
If you need help getting started, I recommend checking out sadgrl.online. (More links to resources in the comments section of this post).
I know neocities has been talked about before, especially within my follower circle, but I thought I'd bring it up again for anyone unaware of this awesome platform.